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After Celebration, Saints Face Reality and the Colts

Saints fans let the good times roll in the French Quarter after New Orleans clinched a berth in the Super Bowl with an overtime victory Sunday.Credit
Sean Gardner/Reuters

METAIRIE, La. — The raucous party for the New Orleans Saints lasted until the wee hours of Monday morning in the French Quarter.

Car horns blared and Saints fans jammed Bourbon Street, dancing to chants of “Who Dat?” in a scene reminiscent of Mardi Gras. Few could have imagined such a spectacle four and a half years ago, when New Orleans was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina.

For some Saints players, like tailback Reggie Bush, the celebration lasted so late that Bush arrived Monday at team headquarters here wearing large black sunglasses to “hide my eyes” after two hours of sleep.

Safety Darren Sharper said: “When I got outside this morning, I saw the city was still standing. So that was a good thing.”

But once the sun rose, reality began to set in for New Orleans, the city and the team. The Saints will make the first Super Bowl appearance in the franchise’s 42-year-old history when they play the Indianapolis Colts on Feb. 7 in Miami Gardens, Fla.

What might have been lost in all the hoopla was that the Saints were fortunate to have beaten the sloppy Minnesota Vikings, 31-28, in overtime Sunday night in the National Football Conference championship game.

After all, the Vikings outgained them in net yards, 475-257; ran 27 more plays; had the ball for nearly nine more minutes; and were penalized 56 fewer yards.

But the difference was Minnesota’s five turnovers. The most costly was Brett Favre’s interception in the final seconds of regulation, when the Vikings were moving into position for a potential game-winning field-goal attempt. Favre instead could have run for 5 yards to set up Ryan Longwell to be the hero.

Luck might have also been a factor because Minnesota never got the ball in overtime. New Orleans won the coin toss and moved quickly to set up Garrett Hartley’s 40-yard field goal.

On Monday, even New Orleans Coach Sean Payton acknowledged that his team could have just as easily lost.

Photo

The reality TV star Kim Kardashian with her boyfriend, the Saints' Reggie Bush, after the game.Credit
Michael Heiman/Getty Images

“Without that swing in turnovers, we probably don’t come up on the winning end,” said Payton, whose team turned the ball over once.

The underdog for the Super Bowl, New Orleans will need to be much better defensively to stop Indianapolis quarterback Peyton Manning, a New Orleans native, and the Colts, who scored 30 points against the Jets’ top-ranked defense to reach the Super Bowl.

The Saints are surrendering an average of 284 passing yards per game in the postseason, third worst out of 12 teams, and were exploited on short passes by Favre on Minnesota’s first two possessions, both of which resulted in touchdowns.

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“We know there are things that we need to correct,” Saints cornerback Tracy Porter said.

The N.F.L.’s reigning most valuable player, Manning is a master of picking apart defenses by spreading the ball around with short passes. He is equally as skilled at reading defenses before the snap and calling audibles to expose weaknesses.

In two games this postseason, Manning has thrown for 623 yards and 5 touchdowns with just one interception.

“He’s got a great grasp as to what he’s seen, and I think throughout the course of the game, that becomes in itself a challenge as to his ability to direct traffic and put them in the best place possible,” Payton said. “He does that better than anyone.”

That is obvious to Sharper, who described Manning as “the best quarterback if not of all time, but in the league right now.”

Porter said: “He’s always a concern. We’re going against a great offense. It’s going to provide a huge challenge for us.”

And although New Orleans’s high-powered offense remains potent, it too sputtered against Minnesota. The Saints led the N.F.L. in yards per game (403.8) during the regular season, but they went three and out on 7 of 14 possessions Sunday.

The Saints hardly seemed worried Monday about having to face a Colts defense that is allowing only 10 points per game in the playoffs. Instead, Bush talked about being tired after his night out and receiving a congratulatory text message from the rapper Snoop Dogg.

“It’s fun,” Bush said. “It’s good times. I’m just excited to be a part of it.”

So is the rest of the city, but the Saints better watch out for a hangover.

A version of this article appears in print on January 26, 2010, on Page B13 of the New York edition with the headline: After Celebration, Saints Face Reality and the Colts. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe